So Mason is really into history stuff – he loves the Titanic, “I Survived” books, and learning about famous presidents and such. I checked him out a “Weird But True History Facts” book and he’s been loving it.

One night, when we’d had a super busy day and he was well beyond tired, he went and laid down half an hour before bedtime and was reading this book. He got all excited and called me into his room and shared with me that the longest beard on record was 17 and some feet long and showed me the picture. I told him that that was pretty gross and let him continue reading. Ten minutes later, SuperDad comes in and asks if I knew that Mason had been bawling since I left his room? Nope, totally news to me! Turns out that he was heartbroken that I “didn’t like his cool history fact and he really loves history and I didn’t like it at all.” I had to go make amends and promise him that I loved his fact and just thought the long beard was gross. I barely convinced him and he fell asleep moments later, still upset. #momfail

Fast forward to last night – up too late the night before for fireworks, long day at an outdoor nature camp, Homeboy was TI-RED.

He and SuperDad were watching funny videos and he found two he really wanted to share with me. The first one was a dog howling along to the Howlers on Zootopia and the second one was a white fluffy cat playing with a bobcat kitten. I said that it was super cute but I didn’t think it was right that people had a bobcat kitten for a pet. Cue M running out of my room sobbing. I never learn, do I? He was heartbroken that I would want to take the white cat’s friend away and wouldn’t the white cat be SO LONELY?!!?

I love his soft tender heart. I am also apparently a very slow learner. On the bright side? He was sound asleep two minutes later.

I’ve spent the last month wanting to brush off the old blog and start again.

Which led to obsessing over a new domain name (because, let’s face it, there is ZERO things toddler-like about Mason these days), a new banner, a perfect first post and then I realized the longer I thought about it, the less likely I was to ever come back.

So, how’s life everyone?!? What’s changed in the last two years? Anyone still out there? Anyone still blogging? Say hi!

We went to the local library’s summer reading kick off in June and for their summer reading program, they have the kids pick a goal of how many books they want to read that summer and then the kids get prizes when they get to the 1/2 way point and their goal.

At first, Mason told the librarian that he only wanted to read one book this summer (I was a bit embarrassed LOL)and then when I told him we had to read more books than that, he pulled out his favorite number… 288.

I told the librarian that we usually read three books every night, so she did some quick math – 90 days times 3 books equals 270 books. Mason insisted, “No, I said 288!”

I said “What the heck?!” and we rounded it up to 290 books and now we’re looking at reading 290 books this summer. EEK.

I’m not sure we’re going to reach our goal – more so because I forget to track our books more often than not (OOPS) but hey, we’re going to try.

As for me, the best books I’ve read so far this summer are

and while I’m not finished with it, unless the ending sucks, this is my other favorite so far

I’m also enjoying reading two different series by Robin Jones Gunn. I fondly remember reading her books when I was in junior high and I was way too excited to learn that I could read about the same characters in college and after college now. Nice light reading to complement some of the parenting books I’m also reading 🙂

So, how about you? What have you read this summer? What do you hope to read in the next few months? What are your kids loving! Do tell!

Why yes, I know summer is a little over 1/3 over already, but I figured I would post our summer bucket list. I had a great family one made and saved on my cell phone (you know, so I could whip it out and refer to it whenever we were going “What should we do today!?” but I, um, apparently accidentally didn’t actually save it! So, on the old blog it goes –

Summer Bucket List 2015 v2

Go swimming a lot

Visit at least three new parks

Visit Wisconsin Dells

Go on a bike ride on a scenic bike trail

Find at least 30 geocaches

Visit a new state

See the fireworks (done July 4th)

Visit a new beach (done July 4th)

Have at least three bonfires

Use up our Splash Pad punch card

Go to several parades Two so far

Go fishing (Done June 8th – hope to do more!)

Go camping

Go on a boat ride

Have a play date with a new friend

Have a play date with an old friend

Go to the Farmer’s Market

Go to the drive in theatre

Have lots of cookouts

Go to the fair

Get Mason’s face painted

Play date with Cousin Chloe

Eat lots of summery foods

What are your hopes and goals for this summer? We’d love to hear about them!

A whole school year has passed! We’ve celebrated many holidays, went to Disney, had lots of adventures, made it through another Wisconsin winter, and I really hope to get back into blogging because I miss recording our lives in this manner and interacting with all of you!

Jamberry Nails are vinyl adhesive nail wraps that form a water tight seal to your nail using heat and pressure. You can easily apply them at home and they last up to 2 weeks on fingers and 6 weeks on toes with no chipping, no dry time, and no nasty chemicals. It doesn’t matter if you have short fingernails, long fingernails, or are awful at painting your nails – Jamberry Nails work for just about everyone and there is over 300 styles to chose from. One sheet does 2 manicures and 2 pedicures and they come in both child and adult sizes.

My Story

I grew up with two older brothers who I idolized and thus, have never been much of a girly girl. I basically live in a t-shirt (or hoodie) and jeans and scrubs at work. I’ve always been awful at painting my nails. My bff and I use to go get manicures together (what fun!) and a day or two later, they’d be chipped all to heck and I’d feel bad about the wasted money. Thus, my nails have been naked for years.

In May, one of my friends started talking about Jamberry Nails on Twitter. She kept trying to get me to try a sample and I believe my response was “Eh, I don’t really have the time or patience to mess with a bunch of nail stuff these days. Plus, everything I do with my nails looks awful.” She kept offering and finally I took the bait and she sent me some samples.

I put them on the next day in my kitchen and the nails I didn’t have wraps on, I painted with glitter polish. The next morning, I wrecked the glitter polish buckling Mason into his car seat and had to touch it up at least daily, but even after two weeks, the Jamberry Nail wraps still looked great! I. Was. Hooked.

I participated in her Facebook party and won a SLEW of free stuff – enough Jamberry Wraps to do my nails every two weeks until December! Woohoo! The party was so fun and easy that I thought “What the heck, why don’t I have my own party?! More free nail wraps for me!”

To make a long story short, I decided I talk about Jamberry so much and since I was already trying to get everyone to try them enough that I should try to sell them! So I became a Jamberry Nails Independent Consultant! Now I have amazing nails AND get paid for introducing others to them – it’s a total win win.

Using Jamberry Nail wraps is super easy. All you need is a sheet of Jamberry Wraps, a heat source (a blow dryer or rice bag work fine), some rubbing alcohol, a nail file, a scissors and a a cuticle pusher. While the first application takes a little longer (as does anything the first time you do it!), I can apply a full manicure in under half an hour and don’t have to think about it again for two weeks!

For the first time in my LIFE, I’m getting compliments on my nails. Like, stopped by random strangers type compliments. How awesome is that?!

Here are some Jamicures I’ve done

Here are some that I’m super excited to try out!

The Giveaway

There will be TWO winners – one winner will win a pedi-pack which is enough to do one pedicure. A lot of people like to JUST do their toes, so here’s your chance!

One winner will receive a free wrap of their choice – a full wrap is enough to do 2 manicures and 2 pedicures

AND keep checking back because if I hit 100 likes on Facebook, I’ll add a 3rd prize!

Enter via Rafflecopter between NOW and Thursday, August 21st. Winner will be contacted via e-mail and have 48 hours to respond. Must be in the US or Canada to win.

(This giveaway was not sponsored by Jamberry in any way. I am a Jamberry Independent Consultant and product being given away will be purchased with my own funds for the purpose of this giveaway. Jamberry hasn’t given me a thing to provide this review, I just truly think Jamberry Nail Wraps are amazing and want to share them with my blog friends)

This next few weeks are shaping up to be the most tumultuous of Mason’s short little life.

At the end of the month, his bff is leaving our childcare program to attend 4k in his own school district and a daycare closer to home. He and Mason have played together basically every day since they were infants. I really cannot even think too hard about how sad Mason is going to be about this without tearing up myself. Mason still is regularly sad about another close friend (Cara) who left the center in June and currently cries if he knows ahead of time A won’t be at school that day. My heart hurts for him already and they still have a few more weeks together.

The following week, Mason will start 4k. He will board a bus every morning full of school kids and attend school at the elementary school from 8:00 – 11:15 Monday through Thursday and then return to daycare for the afternoon. He is SO excited about riding the bus and going to “big school.” We’ve arranged for him to attend morning classes so might have a chance to see Cara during group activities.

We’re considering changing child care centers and if this happens, we hope to line it up with the upcoming changes above. This is a hard move to consider since he’s been with the same center since he was 9 weeks old and a lot of those girls have had a huge hand in raising him. On the other hand, they’ve had a huge amount of turnover, poor communication, issues with bullying, and the list goes on and on. No center is perfect and we will genuinely miss some of the staff if he does go somewhere else, but there have been a few too many issues to keep looking the other way. If the change goes through, he’ll be home on some Fridays with SuperDad, which he will love. The new center also has a lot of kids that have moved on from the same childcare center we’re currently at, so there will be several familiar faces there.

Part of me thinks we’re nuts for considering throwing so much at him at once, but the other part of me thinks that some of the transition will go better if he’s immersed in a bunch of new things instead of having one thing change one week and then a week later something else and then the next week something else. Rip the bandaid off all at once, right?

It’s been a long while, but I’m linking up today with Harvesting Kale and Ot & Et to share what we’re CURRENTLY up to. If you’ve done a similar post, feel free to go link up too!

Mason is currently…

craving smoothies – this boy LOVES his smoothies and asks to make them all the time. Well, all the time when I have zero good smoothie ingredients, it seems.

cleaning nothing much these days. It seems like the days of dragging out 30,000 toys are behind us as our living room hasn’t looked like a bomb has went off recently, There’s been no real need for him to do much other than put away Legos or a tractor lately. I probably just totally cursed myself by posting that on the interwebz, huh?

daydreaming about vacation. He asks all the time when we can go on “bay-cation” again and then asks if this baycation can include baseball. I’m not really sure what he means by this because there’s no chance he’d sit through an actual entire baseball game as he makes it about ten minutes at the local games. But he’s been thinking about a “baseball and swimming baycation” a lot recently.

growing up way too quickly. National Night Out was Tuesday night and unlike last year where he wanted to drive all the trucks and climb on everything, this year he was more about running the obstacle course and playing on the playground. It was kind of bittersweet. Him and his BFF DID stop long enough to pose for their annual fire truck photo though!

2013 Above, 2014 Below

reading a book that I picked up at Goodwill where Clifford teaches about math and Mason can move around magnetic bones to go along with the math problems. Best $1.29 I’ve spent lately.

I am currently…

craving ice cream. I’ve had an upset stomach all day and realize this would be a bad idea, but it sounds oh so good.

cleaning not as much as I should be. My computer desk is a disaster of epic proportions. Taking the usual mess of mail + stuff I bring home from work + stuff that comes home from daycare and then adding in all my Jamberry stuff (samples, mailing supplies, etc) and ohhh man could this desk use some serious cleaning and organizing!

daydreaming about what will happen if I can ever get my Jamberry business off the ground. All it takes is one or two Facebook parties to get the ball rolling and I can’t wait until that happens to me (hopefully in two weeks!) My friend who got me hooked is making a killing just a few months in and I really hope I can follow in her footsteps!

growing larger by the day. I really need to get my mindless eating and butt-sitting under control. Good thing I didn’t throw out all my bigger clothes when I lost all those inches last year…

reading is awesome. I didn’t read much of anything in June and July and now am back at it. Just finished Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and tomorrow I will pick up Keep Quiet by Lisa Scottoline.

(July 7, 2014)

Apparently, I haven’t posted in nearly three months. And really, content-wise, it’s more like four months. To top that off, I really haven’t kept up with anyone else’s blogs since late May either. Holy hell, I basically fell out of the blogosphere entirely. I went from moments to launching my new design to complete and utter radio silence. Eek!

I tried to start reading more (books) and spending more time with my husband, which really cut into my blogging time. Then sometime in early June, my friend held a Jamberry Nails online party and I became hopelessly addicted to all things Jamberry. The husband and I tried to adopt a TV show or two to watch (Fargo anyone? It freaks me out!) and I’m trying to enjoy as much summer weather as I can before it’s gone for another 7 months. Those are my excuses, anyway.

I’m totally kicking myself for not blogging for so long because it was a struggle to make this list – I so much LOVE having all the memories and photos at my fingertips like I have well documented for Mason’s first 2-3 years. I’m hoping to at least get some pictures up soon!

What do we have coming up?

More beach trips

A blog re-design (For real this time? Maybe? LOL)

Mason’s bff leaves to go to another school 🙁

Mason starting school in a little over a month O.M.G.

A big greyhound festival

a Jamberry Nails giveaway here on the blog

and hopefully many more days of sunshine

and a swift kick in the butt to keep me back on the blogging horse

So, how has your summer been? Whatcha been up to?!!? I’d LOVE to hear about it!